Improvements in scintillation performance of Tl2LaCl5:5%Ce single crystals via Sr2+, Ba2+ and Ca2+ co-doping

Abstract

High detection efficiency for X- and γ-rays, the possibility for fast neutron detection, and other excellent scintillation performances of Tl₂LaCl₅ (TLC) make it a potential radiation detector for applications in space exploration, medical imaging, homeland security, radiation monitoring, and nuclear and particle physics experiments. We evaluated the luminescence and scintillation performance of pure TLC and TLC doped with 5 mol% Ce (TLC:Ce) and co-doped with 5 mol% Ce and 0.2 mol% Ba, Ca, and Sr crystals, separately (TLC:Ce,Ba, TLC:Ce,Ca and TLC:Ce,Sr). The effect of co-doping on the luminescence and scintillation performance of TLC:Ce is studied for the 1st time. The room temperature radio- and photoluminescence shows characteristic Ce³⁺ luminescence for the Ce-doped and co-doped TLC crystals. We found that the co-doped crystals show improvement in terms of light yield, while improvement in the energy resolution and non-proportionality is observed in TLC co-doped with Ce and Sr.